On a recent flight from Philadelphia to San Diego I had the following conversation with a woman—we’ll call her Mary—who believed that all religions were equal. I wrote down the conversation a few days later. Here it is:

All Religions Are Equal

“I suppose when it comes down to it,” Mary said, “the main thing is that people are sincere in what they believe. All religions are equal.”

Call it what you want: birth dearth, global fertility crisis, demographic time bomb—the reality of the Western world’s slow suicide has gone from crackpot theory to badly kept secret to acknowledged-but-ignored fait accompli.

Catholic Answers readers are, I suspect, more familiar than most with the basic facts, courageously proclaimed for decades by pro-life groups and specialized outfits like the Population Research Institute...

It sets me on edge to hear people refer to themselves as "devout" Catholics. Adjectives modify nouns, and some nouns are sturdy enough to stand on their own.

I understand the idea, of course, of identifying oneself as firmly believing and taking the Faith seriously. But it seems to me that devout injects a note of pious self-puffery. (And don't get me started about the term "staunch Catholic." Does one's reputation as a Catholic really benefit from the added connotation of...

A Catholic hospital in Colorado has been under criticism from just about everyone in the past few weeks for its unusual legal maneuver in a wrongful death lawsuit. An article on CNN recounts the gist of the story this way:

The flip-flop concerns the case of Lori Stodghill. She was 28 weeks pregnant with twins when she went to the emergency...

"Approaching, do not come with your palms stretched flat nor with fingers separated. But making your left hand a seat for your right, and hollowing your palm, receive the Body of Christ, responding Amen. And having with care hallowed your eyes by the touch of the Holy Body, take it, vigilant lest you drop any of it."

~ Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, Doctor of the Church, Saint; on the proper technique for receiving Holy Communion in the hand (circa A.D. 347).